These Buyers Will Drive Home Sales in 2019 and Beyond

The faces behind home sales are changing quickly, and while the Hannahs and Austins still have a long way to go to catch up with the Michaels and Johns, they are closing the gap. Buyer data on home sales for the first nine months of the year not only reveals a fun mosaic of names participating in today’s housing market, but also a sneak preview into key emerging trends. The analysis, while limited in interpretation, uncovers a story of sales increasingly skewing toward three key demographics: Millennials, Women, and Hispanics. Names associated with these groups are taking a larger share of all sales, and rapidly changing the landscape of the U.S. housing market. If these buyers can continue breaking through the affordability barrier, we should expect them to emerge further in 2019 and dominate the market in the years to come. Learn more about the methodology here.

Highlights

Hannah, Austin, Alexis, Logan, and Taylor were the top five homebuyer names with the fastest levels of sales growth in 2018, with all seeing 19-23 percent increases over last year. Michael, John, David, James, and Robert were the top five names by sales volume, but all saw 3-5 percent declines over last year.

Sales with Millennial names increased while sales with Boomer names decreased, up 5.3 and down 2.0 percent year-over-year on average respectively. The top 20 fastest growing names were associated with populations peaking in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Sales with female names increased while sales with male names declined, up 1.6 percent and down 0.1 percent year-over-year on average respectively. Three of the top five, and 10 of the top 20 fastest growing names were predominantly female.

Sales with Hispanic names increased while sales with non-Hispanic names remained virtually flat, up 4.1 and down 0.1 percent year-over-year on average. One in four of the top 100 fastest growing names are traditionally of Hispanic origin.

These Buyer Names Are Closing the Gap

A whopping 150,000 distinct first names appear on titles of residential properties acquired this year, a testament to the plurality of the country, yet just over 2,300 names account for 86 percent of all transactions. Narrowing the list down even further, 411 names with at least 1,300 namesakes buy a home during the analyzed period account for 68 percent of all non-corporate residential sales. This analysis focuses on that core set of buyer names.

In 2018, Hannah, Austin, Alexis, Logan, and Taylor were the top five names with the fastest levels of sales growth. Nationally, home sales have begun to moderate and 2018 should end at least 2 percent below 2017 levels, but these buyers are bucking that trend. The number of homes sold to buyers with these top five names increased 19-23 percent over last year. For each of the top 20 names, sales were up at least 10 percent over last year too. Volume wise, these names are still dwarfed by others, but as the trend continues, we can expect names them to expand their home ownership footprint in 2019 and beyond.

Younger and Older Millennials Coming of Age

Under 35 ownership reached an estimated 36.8 percent in Q3 of 2018, statistically higher than a year earlier, and very likely the highest in five years, according to the latest Census Bureau report on residential vacancies and home ownership. The jump can be seen as a testament to millennials’ resilience against an unaffordable market. By choice or necessity, younger buyers continue to expand their footprint in the market, despite buying costs reaching decade highs and rising above 20-year averages.

While imperfect, joining data on name demographics from the Social Security Administration to deed record buyer information provides hints into how younger age groups are expanding their influence in the housing market. The SSA provides population counts by year of birth and first name. The frequencies can be used to estimate a peak year for each name, which can then be used to map names to their likely generation. For example, the SSA data shows half of Hannahs were born before 1993, and 80 percent of them between 1987 and 1997, thus giving Hannah a high likelihood of being a Millennial buyer. Millennial names are identified as those peaking between 1981 and 1997, Gen-X names between 1965 and 1980, Boomer names between 1946 and 1964 and Silent names before 1946.

In 2018, sales with Millennial and GenX names increased 5.3 and 0.8 percent year-over-year on average respectively, while sales with Boomer and Silent generation names decreased 2.0 and 3.5 percent year-over-year on average respectively.

The year of birth for all five fastest growing primary buyer names peaks in the early 90’s, with an estimated median year of 1993. While volume wise these younger millennials still trail their older millennial counter parts like Ryan, Joshua and Justin, their role in home purchases is expanding quickly. In fact, all but one of the top 20 fastest growing names peak anywhere between the 80’s or 90’s, with an estimated median year of 1989. The only exception is Victoria, a timeless name with two generational peaks, one in the 1950’s and a more recent resurgence in the early 90’s. Given the distributions, and traditional age of home ownership, most of these buyers are likely to be in the older side of the estimate, but it also means they have yet to peak. The trend doesn’t stop there; in the top 100 names, the median birth year still lands in the 80’s, 1982 to be exact. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pattern of growth is a direct reflection of population growth as millennials continue to take a bigger slice of the pie through sheer numbers.

Looking at their geographic footprint in the larger states, Millennial buyer names are particularly over-represented in Kansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri and Utah. These five states also happen to ho me to markets where housing affordability remains above national levels, confirming that jobs and availability of entry level homes act as a magnet to young buyers.

Women are transforming the landscape of home purchases

Single women are one of the fastest growing demographics in the housing market. In 2018, the NAR estimates 18 percent of home purchases will come from single women households, more than double the share of single men at just 7 percent. While older baby boomer and silent generation women are driving the trend, the pattern holds across all age brackets including the under 35 segment. The trend in the younger age groups is likely a reflection of women’s leaps in higher education and continued emergence in the workforce. The 2018 deed data also supports women’s tangible impact on home ownership. Sales associated with female buyer names increased while sales with male names declined, up 1.6 percent and down 0.1 percent year-over-year on average respectively. Interestingly, 64 percent of properties registered under with a female buyer name are under a single name, compared to 46 percent in the broader sample. Single women in home ownership and women as head of households and this appears to be reflected in property titles this year.

The pattern of growth is visible when comparing across genders within the Millennial generation. Looking solely at names with a peak year between 1981 and 1997, home sales with female names increased faster than males, up 6.9 and 4.4 percent on average year-over-year respectively. Also, seven of the top 10 fastest growing buyer names are predominantly Millennial female names, and all of them peak in the 80’s and 90’s.

Hispanic influence in housing continues to grow

Hispanics are the only demographic to have increased their rate of homeownership for the last three consecutive years, according to the latest 2017 Hispanic Wealth Report, which looks at Census estimates of owner-occupied homes. If deed names are an indication, this trend continued this year. Sales associated with what are traditionally Hispanic names increased while sales with non-Hispanic names remained virtually flat, up 4.1 and down 0.1 percent year-over-year on average.

While Hispanics are particularly diverse and hard to track by name and ethnicity, looking at names of Spanish origin tells a tale of an increased footprint. Notably, 26 of the top 100 fastest growing names are traditionally of Hispanic origin, and only one appears in the bottom 100. Within the top 100, Hispanic buyer names skew slightly older than their non-Hispanic counter parts, with a median birth year of 1979 and 1982 respectively. In the full set of 411 names, 40 percent of properties registered under a Hispanic buyer name are also under a single name, compared to 46 percent in the broader sample. This could be a slight hint that the multi-generational approach home buying is still key for parts of the Hispanic population in the U.S.

Looking at the geographic footprint, Hispanic buyer names are naturally over-represented in the south and southwest, with California, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona among the top states. Given the proximity to Central America and the high density of populations of Central American origin, this is not surprising. Over on the east coast, sales to Hispanic names are also over-represented in Florida, Illinois and New Jersey, where demand for homes from domestic and international buyers of South American and Caribbean origin tends to be concentrated.

Methodology/Caveats

The analysis looks at all arms-length, residential non-corporate transactions for the January through September period in 2018. Sales for 2017 are also analyzed to enable year-over-year comparisons. Buyer names are identified by parsing the first name from the primary name on the deed record at the time of the transfer of ownership. Middle names and last names are not parsed. In cases when the deed has more than one buyer name recorded, the information is used to identify multi-name deeds but non-primary names are not parsed. Some limitations include home buyers not always going by their first name and not all names listed as primary are necessarily being heads of the household.

Residential: Sales of property types deemed non-residential are excluded, including sales of land, mobile and multifamily properties. Arms-length: non arms-length deeds, that is when the buyer and seller are not deemed to act in their own self-interest, are excluded. The most common example are sales between friends or family members. Read more about arms-length here. Non-corporate: Many older, married, and more affluent buyers purchase properties via family trusts and limited liability companies. These transactions are also excluded. All information analyzed was kept non-identifiable, that is deeds were solely aggregated by buyer first name, sale date and property physical state.

Buyer names on home sales are just one piece in tracking home ownership. Populations with growing populations may see a bigger share sales over time while home ownership may grow, decline or remain stable. penetration given not comparing population to sales. Only sales participation.

Sources

Deed records from the realtor.com residential home sales database.

Social Security Administration data on names and birth year: total frequency by legal first name for each year. Included names between 1920 and 1997. Used to estimate name peak years and generation.

Gender neutral names and gender likelihood: uses files publicly available on data.world to identify predominantly female or male names. Based on probability that a person with that given name has that predicted gender calculated by ‘number of people with predicted gender’/’total number of people with name’.

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